Today was critter chasing day. The plan was to head over to Grand Teton NP and see what critters we could see. To facilitate that we rented a car for our stay in Yellowstone. Elephant costs .35$ per mile to drive, and we figured that the cost of the rental car would mostly be offset by the miles we saved not driving Elephant and we would gain the flexibility of being able to squeeze into smaller places. It turned out to be a good decision.
Noi is a professional photographer and ran her own travel magazine in Thailand. She asked me what the big five were in Yellowstone. I did not initially understand her question until she explained to me that there were a big five animals you should get photos of in the Serengeti. Ton and I did not know if there was an official big five list for Yellowstone, but we made one up consisting of Bison, Elk, Wolves, Moose, and Bears.
We were not more than a few miles into the park when we crossed our first animal off the list as there was a large herd of Bison. After about an hour of photos were shot we headed on down the road towards Grand Teton. On the parkway between Yellowstone and Grand Teton we got to cross another big five off the list. There was a grizzly contentedly grazing right next to the road despite the considerable scrum of humans about fifty yards away shooting pictures. So far a good day.
The weather was fantastic today with clear blue skies and highs in the sixties. Grand Teton was spectacular and we enjoyed a really nice lunch in the park.
Finally on the way home in addition to some more Bison we were able to get some nice shots of an Elk herd crossing a river. As well as watching some stupid human behavior as a clearly agitated Elk was being ignored by one guy who was so concerned with his photo that he risked getting attacked.
